Specaled Bullets

[kbstenberg]

I had a strange thing happen today when I was casting. I cast a bunch of 311041's, half I WC an the other half I AC.Then I went to 432423 an WC half an AC half.
When I was cleaning up to go inside I dumped the water out of the pail I Quenched in. An ALL the bullets are speckled. I had filled a clean bucket with tap water then had put as much snow in the water as I could just to keep it cold. None of the AC bullets are abnormal. Just the WC ones. I suppose there mus have been some small stuff in the air that attached itself to the snow flakes as they fell.
The spots don't rub off, an I can't feel them when I run my finger over them. So I'm hopping they won't hurt my guns when i shoot them.
No idon't burn wood for heat. So the particles wouldn't be coming from my chimney. But Meany of my neighbors do burn wood. But the nearest one is over half a mile away.
Kevin

[NSP64]

Pictures?
Have you water dropped before?

[462]

"Have you water dropped before?"

When first removed from the water, the boolits will look quite ugly. After a while, they pretty up.

[geargnasher]

Speckled?

Gear

[runfiverun]

white speckels i bet.
just some frosting, or a bit of hard water spotting.
mine change from silver to galvanized grey when water dropped.

[kbstenberg]

Sorry guyes my camera doesn't take good close-ups. Runfiverun no the specks are dark.
Yes i have WC bullets before. Both with an without snow. An I cant remember ever having this prob.
Kevin

[runfiverun]

dark sounds like inclusions, or a too high tin content.
where the tin is higher than the antimonial content. causing spots of tin surrounded by unalloyed lead,
or it could just be spots of oxidization that was pulled to the surface by the quenching.

[lwknight]

causing spots of tin surrounded by unalloyed lead,

How is this possible? Think solder . 40/60 50/50 60/40 20:1 alloy and so on.
Solder casts perfectly

[runfiverun]

tin likes lead fine but it loves antimony more.
it forms the SbSn chain as long as it can making the alloy stronger and less brittle than antimony alone.
now what happens if you have more tin then antimony is the tin attemps to hang in the chain till the alloy starts to cool down, then it is torn from the chain but too late to form another alloy so it floats about causing hard spots of tin surrounded by unalloyed lead.

what water dropping accomplishes is much the same thing [but with antimony] as the alloy cools it traps more antimony to the outside of the alloy causing a harder boolit.

[kbstenberg]

Runfiverrun Why would the WC bullets show this an not the AC?
Sorry i should have mentioned in my first message. My alloy was 50%WW/50%Stick on WW + about .5% Pewter
Kevin